The One Where I Delete My Compulsion to Delete

I have had the serious inclination to delete yesterday’s post. DELETE. Not that I will, of course. But there’s something about telling people you do NOT have it all together that is very frightening.

Don’t be vulnerable in public, for goodness sakes. Vulnerable around friends and family, okay. Your community, sure. But when it comes time to be a leader, nope. Especially not when you’re planning to go round the world telling everyone how buttoned up you are and why they should give you money to change the status quo of postpartum depression. God forbid you appear to be wavering. Or hesitant. Or lacking in fortitude.

But then I remind myself, you don’t have to be fearless to be fierce. That’s my credo, and I’m the one who needs to be reminded of it more than anyone else.

You don’t have to be fearless to be smart and powerful. Or to make change. You don’t have to hide the fact that you have anxiety when you are an advocate for women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, DUH. You don’t have to have a special degree to know that change needs to come now for pregnant and new mothers.

I can’t pretend to be that other kind of person that barges into the boardroom.

Well, that’s not true, now that I think about it. I can. I did that when I was at Coca-Cola and I did just fine. But not about this stuff. This is different. This is my life and the lives of women and their babies we’re talking about. And there is data, there are numbers and I can put together all sorts of charts and I will because that’s what people will want to see but behind that is humanity, including mine. And vulnerability, including mine. And so I can’t delete the previous post or the one before that or the one before that because that would be in direct contradiction to the message of my life and of Postpartum Progress and the Fierce blog: It’s okay to be vulnerable and have fear and for those of us who have had or still crushing anxiety and doubts as we charge forward, that’s perfectly okay too.